Ann Hornaday, Longtime Washington Post Film Critic, Dies at 66

Ann Hornaday, the film critic whose byline ran in The Washington Post for more than two decades, has died at 66. Over that span she produced hundreds of reviews, establishing herself as one of the paper's most prolific voices on cinema. Her writing carried a deliberately unpretentious register; she approached films as an ordinary ticket-buying moviegoer rather than from the elevated position of an academic film scholar. That accessible-but-informed style defined her critical voice. In 2008 her work was recognized with a place as a Pulitzer Prize finalist in criticism. The Washington Post confirmed the death and characterized her approach in its own tribute, noting the popcorn-eating perspective that shaped her assessments. Hornaday's career coincided with a period of major transition in American film criticism, as newspaper staff positions gave way to freelance and online commentary. She remained a fixture at the Post through those changes, filing reviews continuously across her tenure there.